Traditionally, toys are designed for entertainment, education and amusement of children. Due to their tactile proximity, children derive fun and comfort from toys. Additionally, children can be provided with toys, such as dolls, teddy bears or plush animals that can also be used as transitional objects or companions, to reduce strain and allow for regaining psychic equilibrium, thus helping a young individual to cope with past and present trauma, anxiety, depression and psychic pain. A typical example of a transitional object is a baby blanket that is carried everywhere and that the child sleeps with for comfort. Adults can also benefit from the proximity of an object that offers tactile contact and that soothes or that even can render soothing words. In this connection, toys and other interactive companion devices are most beneficial when they can actively respond to commands of the user rather than behave passively in the manner of traditional toys.
There are known various types of toys for children that can be associated with recording and playback equipment, for example, with speakers so the toys can communicate with a user. There are known toys which can be responsive to triggering external user inputs, such as touch or spoken words or sounds. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,890,239 to Kopelle describes a transitional companion in the form of a talking therapy buddy for providing reassurance to a person and for self-healing. The therapy buddy includes a body assembly with an outer covering of soft material and an interior body cavity, a head portion having a face with calm and tranquil features, two elongated flexible arms and legs, an electronic circuit including a sound module housed in the body cavity and a power source. A plurality of switching means are provided covered by the outer covering, and associated with the legs of the assembly and connected to the electronic circuit so as to provide a switch signal response to a person's touching of the respective leg portion switch. The sound means can include a voice synthesizing means for electronic synthesizing a plurality of soothing, reassuring, comforting, and universal words in response to a switch signal provided. The voice synthesizing means includes speaker means for audibilizing the electronically synthesized words.
There are known more sophisticated toys which can respond to signals transmitted through a television program or a computer so that the toys appear to react to the television program or computer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,773,344 to Gabai et al. describes methods and apparatus for integrating interactive toys with interactive television and cellular communication systems. Interactive toys have real time conversations with users, employing speech recognition. Interactive toys are connected to an interactive toy server which is connected to entertainment, education, sales promotion and other content providers via Internet communication systems. Such a connection may utilize, for example, telephone lines, cellular communication systems, coaxial cables, satellite, DSL or other broadband systems. Interactive toys may be connected, via a wireless link, to a computing device such as a home computer, an interactive television set-top box or a base unit which provides Internet connectivity for the toy. Interactive toys may support mobile cellular or satellite communication. These toys are able to provide entertainment, education, sales promotion and other content to a user. Content is provided to users for their toys, which enables toys to form relationships with users. Interactive toys further utilize user knowledge bases to match entertainment, education and sales promotion content to user histories, behaviors and habits. Content is thus personalized to an individual user as well as to a user's environment including the user's location and the time at which the toy is used. Integration of content, such as entertainment, education and sales promotion is provided by merging interactive television techniques with interactive toys.
International Patent Application No. WO2012/014211 to Cohen et al describes a toy apparatus and method for interactive communication between a cellphone and a toy. The method includes transmitting by the cellphone at least one signal; receiving and analyzing by the toy apparatus this signal; determining and producing by the toy apparatus a response to this signal.